It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. Search engine giant Google is developing a pair of electronic glasses that can stream information directly to the user’s eyes in real time.
The glasses, to be launched by the end of the year, will be more like smartphones with the lenses serving as a kind of see-through computer monitor.
Loaded with a low-resolution, built-in camera, the Google glasses “will be able to monitor the world in real time and overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends who might be nearby,” a New York Times report said.
“You will be able to check in to locations with your friends through the glasses,” a Google employee told the Times. Google would not confirm whether the ultra-modern eyewear is in development.
The report also says that the state-of-the-art spectacles, not designed for constant wear, will display information via a heads-up display “in an augmented reality view, rather than as a Web browser page like those that people see on smartphones.”
The glasses will be integrated with other Google products, like Google Latitude to share location, Google Maps to search for nearby places and Google Goggles to search images and identify what is being looked at.
For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends. The glasses might also be used for virtual reality games that use the real world as the playground.
According to the report, the glasses are expected to start selling at the end of the year at a price of between $250 and $600 — about the cost of a smartphone.
The glasses, will be Android based, and will include a display that will sit inches from the wearer’s eye, streaming real-time info about his surroundings, similar to the various augmented reality applications seen on smartphones.
The data will be fetched through a 3G/4G data connection, and the glasses will retrieve information about their surroundings through GPS and several sensors.
